DoubleZero wrote:
"Aren't Backfires, Blackjacks etc a bit more worrying, if resurrected"
They never went away. The Backfires don't have the probes for refuelling under treaty conditions. The Backfire would need to refuel quite a bit to get down near the UK.
The Blackjacks never went away either. The Russians eventually got the Ukrainian Air Force Blackjacks back and placed them in their inventory. The Blackjacks that were in partial build are/were being completed. At least one modernised Blackjack has entered service in the last couple of years with more to be completed.
The Russians flew two Blackjacks down off the east coast of the UK back in Feb 2001. F.3s were sent up to do the intercept. No nice piccies due to it being winter pitch black. The Blackjacks also did sorties last year into North American ADIZ.
Those Bear Hs are all new-build airframes from the 80s. The last one came off the production line in the early 1990s. Lots of money put into the fleet of Blackjacks and Bear Hs over the years and in their weapons too. The Russians have been working on new long-range ALCMs such as the Kh-101.
The Bear H can carry the ALCMs in the bomb-bay on a rotary launcher. It can also carry the weapons on pylons. At one point the Tu-95MS carried the designations Tu-95MS6 and Tu-95MS16 under treaty conditions. This has now been dropped and all can technically carry 16 of the AS-15 Kent ALCMs.